Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (5 page)

            
She wasn’t as loaded with weaponry as she usually was, it meant she’d have less to ditch if her
and Manson had to cut and run like hell; but she had no intention of running this time. She turned in her
seat and grabbed the bag that lay behind it, out of it she pulled first a BlackHawk Omega Triple pistol
mag Pouch. Without hesitating she hooked the pouch on her belt and strapped it to her leg, then she
stuffed as many of the M9's mags in as she could. Next she pulled out a holster that she’d had custom
made to hold the M9. Not really costume to fit the gun but her, she was too petit for any that could be
found in a store, it too strapped to her thigh and hung from her belt. Her cousin made a bad habit of
saying it looked very much like something a cowboy would wear. Or the analogy that he seemed to
love most of all, that it was identical to something Han Solo’s character from Star Wars had worn. Her
cousin, though a priest he was, was one of the strangest people she’d ever met, everything was
referenced to some science fiction movie or show or other from when they were kids. She had dozens
of holsters that would hold the Beretta where she could easily get to it but this one was her favorite. If
she could get away with wearing it in public she might, but she wasn’t a cop or a soldier and it was just
too blatantly out in the open. Right now she wasn’t going to have to worry about concealing any
weapons so she wasn’t going to try. She had the hip holster on her right side and the ammo pouch on
the left. Her right hand was usually the one she drew fastest with, that was questionable tonight, but she
didn’t trust herself to draw left handed fast enough to risk it.

            
 After a few moments hesitation she pulled out a shoulder holster that Manson had updated by
hand for her. Her second M9 rested on her right side so she could draw with her left, it was a Galco
Jackass Rig shoulder system originally. Manson had fashioned it to hold the ammo for her Remington
over and under pump-action shot gun, which she had every intention of taking with her. After
yesterday she knew she would feel almost naked without the M16 with her, the shotgun would help to
ease that anxiety. She loaded the shot gun and flung it over her back to hang their by its strap, it would
make the rest of the trip uncomfortable but she wanted to be able to book-it when they arrived. That
done she moved unto her Diehard Ankle rig in which she stuffed a small revolver. To her the ankle
holster proved in most situations to be too entirely useless. She’d never had time to reach for it, nor
would she if her life depended on it. But Manson had always said to her that you could never have too
many arms on your person. You never knew when exactly life would throw you a curve ball and she
would need the damn thing. Of coarse she had no doubt that when she needed it she wouldn’t have put
it on. She strapped the thing on now, covered it with her pant leg and forgot that it was there.

            
 She moved back up to her BlackHawk pouch and slipped her Bowie knife in the place that
she had specially created specifically for it. It rarely came of use, but it was big, which meant it did a
nice amount of damage with one blow. In her experience it hadn’t killed as many bad guys as her
faithful M16 had, but it did nicely in a pinch in terms of intimidation. The blade was double edged at the
point, and very dangerous if you found yourself on the wrong end of it. She couldn’t not also admit that
she was a big Jim Bowie fan, who wouldn’t admire that kind of craftsmanship, she only wished she
found more use for it. Farther down her leg she had a K-bar, another blade, her reserve should she
lose the Bowie knife. It too was dangerous up close and personal, maybe you could throw it from a
distance but it wouldn’t be very effective given she had no practice throwing knives with accuracy. She
had even more weapons stashed at home but no room with which to carry it all around with her and she
knew that any more would inhibit her ability to move regardless.

            
Tonight she would settle with the two M9's, the Remington shotgun, the small revolver at her
ankle, Bowie knife, and k-bar blade. If it wasn’t enough then she had no idea what would be. At least
she was never as packed with equipment as Manson chose to be. He had an oozy 9mm that went with
him no matter the circumstance. In a cross draw shoulder holster the old fashioned boy kept to his left
a 44 magnum revolver, to the right a Colt semi automatic 45. At the small of his back he kept his
reserve pistol as he called it, a Glock 9mm no less. Only Manson would have such a large pistol for his
back up. Along with his oozy, Manson refused to go into battle without his M60. A general purpose
machine gun no less, was there really a general purpose for a machine gun, not for normal people. But
her and Manson were hardly normal people. The M60 weighed 23 pounds, you weren’t likely to catch
her carrying the thing around. And last other than the identical blades like hers that he carried he had an
M72A2. It was a fucking anti-tank weapon with a caliber of 66mm, she’d said to him more then once
that he was over doing it with that one. His only response had been that it was just a light anti-tank
weapon, like it being light made any real difference. He’d been doing all of this longer than she had, but
she prayed that she never felt that it would get bad enough to carry around an M72 with her.

            
She understood her weaknesses better then most, she had them thrown in her face continuously
in her line of work. She was lacking she understood that, her enemy would always be stronger, faster,
and a hundred times more resilient than she could ever hope to be no matter how much strength or
endurance she built, no matter how much pain she trained her body to ignore. That was why they
carried so many weapons, that was why Manny packed so many high caliber weapons, and the truth
was she might too if she weren’t so damn small. But the sad truth was that at the end of the day not
even everything they carried around would manage to level the playing field. She wished that it weren’t
so, but the reality was that they’re enemy was consistently more agile and too fast to even hit with a
bullet, and even when they did you practically had to rend them limb from limb before they were down.
Jennifer reached up and rested her fingers against the silver cross that rested against her collar bone.
This was the real defense, her faith, the cross around her neck was a reminder that there was something
else to protect her. And as ridiculous as it sounded to believe that God was protecting her, she had
been raised with the knowledge that if all else failed this couldn’t be taken from her. She gave a silent
prayer that all would go as it should knowing that it would do little good, she may have faith in a higher
power, but she had born witness to what blind faith without action resulted in. Dropping her hand away
from the crucifix she let her hand rest down by the 9mm at her hip. The cross was a last resort, usually
if her target was close enough for the cross to come of use it was probably because she was about to
die.

            
She thought of the few occasions that she could recall that it had happened, remembered the
irritation and fear that crossed the faces of the enemy coming for her. She tried not to put a name to
them, hated thinking of them as anything but the enemy, but in the end she knew what they were.
Walking dead, soulless, feeding off the blood of the living, vampire, there would have been a time once
when the term would have suited them, revealing them for the monsters that they were. But now
people heard the word and thought only of romance, brooding figures struggling with their own nature,
struggling to preserve human life, vampires that sparkled, for the love of god. There were times when
she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs just thinking about it, seeing what she had seen she knew
vampires for what they were. Brooding perhaps that was true but each and every one of them was
covered in blood, dripping with it, and she could only be glad that if one of the suckers did step into the
sun they would burn. What was so romantic about the notion of a monster who feed off the life force of
others so they could live forever Jennifer would never know. She knew from experience that forever
could only lead to one thing for a person, and it was madness, to add the deaths of hundreds to ones
conscience just to accomplish that would only make that come faster.

            
Let people make love stories out of them if they liked, Jennifer would just have to remain
satisfied with the knowledge that while most people were being idiots there were others like her out
there dragging the monsters into the light to watch the skin peel from their bones. She had met enough
vampires to understand where the misconception might have come from. They were always beautiful, if
you were going to live forever she supposed they found it easier to want to look at ones self in the
mirror and then surround yourself with beauty, though it only lasted on the outside. She’d met more
than one that had managed to hide their true nature from her for a little while, but the monster eventually
peeked it’s head out. They looked human enough but in the end they were after one thing and little
else, blood. But vampire was no longer a sufficient word to describe them to people, monster seemed
more appropriate, nobody romanticized the word monster. It was the thing that stole your children
away in the dark, that raped and burned it’s way through villages, monsters were plagues that you
looked for a way to wipe off the face of the earth. That was what vampires were, not lonely heros, not
something you put on a t-shirt or start a fan club for. Jennifer had quickly come to hate the word
vampire and so replaced it in her mind with the enemy, monster, killer. The fact that most of them
couldn’t even look at a cross without physical pain was proof of that for her, not that she needed more
proof then simply seeing what it was they were capable of.

            
"Are we sure that this is him," Jennifer finally asked pulling herself out of her thoughts enough to
try and focus back on this one vampire instead of everyone she’d had to face. She turned in her seat
so that she could see Manson, he was better then her when it came to focusing on the details.

            
"It’s him," was all he said, "seven dead, sloppy this time, he didn’t even bother to hide the trail
of bodies." Jennifer shook her head facing forward again, this was the second time she would be facing
this one, she didn’t know it’s name not that it mattered in the end, she’d dispatched more than she
could count who were nameless. This one she could tell would be different, he was savage, he was
powerful, which usually meant he belonged to someone with even more power. Jennifer’s mind
wandered to Ada, one of several vampires with a name she’d been forced to learn by necessity and
couldn’t help but wonder if this one was hers. He was up to her standard of beauty, she shoved the
thought aside, one way or another it didn’t matter this time he was going to die. She refused to retreat
again, she would take this one down even if he took her with him. Seven was a bigger body count than
she’d seen a vampire accumulate at once in a long time, she just hoped he was sticking around so she
could add his own death to the number.

Chapter 3

            
Malcolm pulled the van over by an apartment complex that was very much like the one that
they’d been at yesterday. This was the building where the seven people had been killed, if they were
lucky their murderer wouldn’t have gotten far. This guy had a bad habit of staying close to the murder
scene, maybe he thought it was funny, or maybe he was just stupid. It was time to find out which,
without looking she knew that Manson had opened the door nearest him and was making to climb out
of the vehicle. For a moment Jennifer paused in her actions to do the same, there had been a time not
long ago that before each one of her dangerous excursions in hunting when she would have stopped
and kissed the man in the drivers seat before she climbed out. A part of her would always miss him, or
at least the person that she’d thought he’d been. Now when she paused it wasn’t to kiss him good-bye
because they had both known each time she’d left this vehicle that might be exactly what the kiss would
have been, because she might die. Instead she paused and leveled a serious look in his direction,
"don’t stay parked here, if he’s close we don’t want him to stumble on the two of you. Circle the
building if you want, park a couple blocks down," she offered as another option. "I don’t want the two
of you in the line of fire if it can be avoided." Each and every person on their team was trained in hand
to hand combat, for all the good it would do them, and could proficiently manage a fire arm. Those
skills didn’t change the fact that neither Malcolm nor Marcia had any actual combat experience,
Malcolm was an escape driver and Marcia on her best of days was even more useless than that.
Mediums were useful outside the field, on it they were cannon fodder and negotiators, well vampires
tended to kill those for fun.

            
Jennifer didn’t say more just slipped out of the passenger seat onto the sidewalk praying that
she would get the door closed before Malcolm would point out the obvious like he always did.
"Jenny," she inwardly cursed when Malcolm interjected before she could even close the door. "Take a
radio," she hated that he always managed to notice when neither she nor Manson had bothered to take
one. In her experience carrying around a radio always seemed to be more trouble than not. She had
put in more than once that they now made models that could have earphones attached for the purpose
of stealth but they were still loud enough for a vampire to hear. She didn’t like it but knew it was
protocol and wasn’t about to give Malcolm any ammunition he could feed to the higher ups in hopes of
getting her reassigned in hopes that she’d come crawling back to him. She turned somewhat sulkily on
her heel when he called on her again before she could close the door. "Jen," he waited for her to look
back at him before he said more, "stay safe."